EX-CEO PICKED AS PRIVACY ADVISER

Bloomberg LP appointed former IBM Chairman and CEO Samuel Palmisano as an independent adviser on security and data issues, as the company seeks to address customers’ concerns about possible breaches in the confidentiality of their usage data.

The news and financial data company said Friday that Palmisano will report to its board of directors and he will immediately undertake a review of current policies for client data and end-user information. The appointment comes after Bloomberg named a chief data compliance officer last week.

Bloomberg said last week that its reporters had limited access to some data considered proprietary, including when a customer logs in or looks for information on assets such as equities or bonds. Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief Matthew Winkler apologized after a major client, Goldman Sachs Group, lodged complaints.

Since then, other Bloomberg clients, including JPMorgan Chase and government agencies across the globe, have said they were looking into the issue.

Privately held Bloomberg, which competes with Thomson Reuters, gets the bulk of its revenue from terminal sales to financial institutions. The company has more than 315,000 terminal subscribers globally, with each Bloomberg terminal costing roughly $20,000 a year. Last year, it posted revenue of $7.9 billion.